


Inquest

by KarkaHatchlings



Series: Guild Wars 2 Interstitial [3]
Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game), Guild Wars Series (Video Games)
Genre: Adventure, Conversations, Exploration, Fluff, Gen, Mystery, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 04:12:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14276655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KarkaHatchlings/pseuds/KarkaHatchlings
Summary: An asura/charr duo explore ruins belonging to the Inquest.





	Inquest

Dropping down from the ledge, the asura landed with a small hop on the other side of the energy barrier that separated the complex from the riotous green of the swampy hillocks at the base of the cliff. With no immediate danger on her side, she peered back through the bars of light, trying to find the charr. There were only flies, frogs, and the smoking remains of a containment golem to be spotted, however, and Pleek felt her annoyance mounting to surpass the tiny nag of concern for his fate.

The drag of claw on stone made her whirl around, though ingrained discipline kept her from panic. Balrit chuckled roughly at the reaction anyway. "I was waiting." He pushed himself off the cube of stone he'd been leaning against as if he'd been there all along, considering the claw tip he'd used to get her attention. Deciding he hadn't blunted it, he straightened his robes and brushed imaginary dust from a shoulder.

Pleek's scowl was a terror but she knew the charr enough to know he would only be amused. "If you were any lazier, you'd figure out how to Deny breathing." She swept past him, the extra steps required of her shorter legs making the gesture faintly ridiculous. He'd planted himself right in her path.

"More work than you'd think," muttered the charr before he followed.

Beyond the short entryway, the complex’s deep, open interior was in ruins, floating platforms slipped precariously from their orbits and hanging at dangerous angles. Many lacked the fields that made them passable in the first place. Strange motes of blue floated in the air, lending an ethereal glow to the scene of the disaster. Gurgling water had flooded the facility below, roiled by something glimpsed only as a murky shadow in the dim blue light. Dismissing the dangers, Pleek pointed across the open space at a well-lit alcove above the water blocked by more barricades. "Looks promising," she said, perversely cheerful, "the good stuff is always behind barricades." Balrit declined to comment.

Taking a deep breath and a running start, the asura leapt to the nearest platform, blue skirt flaring behind her, then the next, before checking on Balrit's progress. Behind, charr jumped and landed heavily, impact knocking sparks from the platform's damaged mechanisms. Two long steps kept his momentum, and Pleek scurried to make room for his landing. Without pausing, his next leap carried him to more solid ground, an actual floor at the base of a collapsed wall. "This is indirect," he remarked, noting the route was parallel their goal and starting to climb as she leapt after.

Frowning at being passed, Pleek grasped handholds in the steep, script-etched talus and scrambled up. "There are..." digging in her claw-tips, she thrust with short legs, hopping to new handholds with a clatter of armor and weapons, "terminals to disable the barriers."

“Toss it up,” Balrit indicated the heavy sword bouncing on her back, extending a paw from the top.

Pleek panted, pulling herself up another step, then rolled her shoulders to seat the weapon better for the rest of the climb. “And let you mishandle my sword?” she grunted at the exertion, “not likely.”

At the summit she threaded her way out of the wreckage of the lab they’d found, crunching over smashed equipment toward a still-glowing terminal. Balrit let her work, taking careful stock of the broken glass, the barricades, the wavering platforms before peering back down the slope at the water and whatever lurked there, trapped. There was a story to be told here. But first: “surprised you came alone.”

“Hm?” Pleek said absently, “oh, I sent Charter to help Garbrech with the dragon champion sighted on the western shore. We don’t need three to loot this place.”

“Maybe,” allowed the charr, words trailing as always into a growl, “didn’t know you were in charge of him.”

The woman shot him a glare from under the rim of her helmet, switching off the console. Across the chasm of broken platforms, one of the barricades dimmed. “He’s smart enough to listen to reason,” her tone suggested it wasn’t a commonly found trait, “come on.”

Pleek didn’t wait, edging her way around a narrow ledge above the water to another destroyed room, then wedging herself into a diagonal chimney to work up to the next level of the ruined complex. Watching her climb, the charr sighed and painstakingly followed, his own bulk making the traverse upward impossible. He was left to gaze up at the asura, watching her work.

“Charter says the other console should be around here,” the asura stood on tiptoe to peer over a tumbled block, apparently dislodged from the ceiling.

“‘Charter says,’” below, Balrit’s impression was tone-perfect, even if the rough timbre of his voice rendered it a gruesome mockery. A piece of broken masonry clattered down from above, barely missing his head. When he looked up again with his yellow eyes narrowed, Pleek’s shrug in reply was innocent, but her display of pointed teeth wasn’t. The expression of vengeful glee was ghastly when illuminated by the glowing blue motes in the air that seemed to be the disaster’s residue.

“Found it,” she offered, then disappeared from view.

Left to his own devices, Balrit shuffled through the debris-littered lab. Whatever disabled the Inquest facility, it happened near here, given the patterns of damage. Blast markings radiated into the lab from the open chasm, scoring walls and ceiling as if it had come from below. Finally, his eyes settled on a pathetic bundle of red and black rags curled in one corner. Gathering his robes up, the charr squatted on his haunches over the corpse, peering down. One sightless blue eye stared past him at the ceiling and the other was gone, burned away with the rest of her face. A broken pen was still clutched in one four-fingered hand.

Casting about, the charr found her notepad: the wall above the nearest workbench, etched script still visible despite the blackened burn-marks over it. Carefully, he sounded out the asuran, gaining speed as he went along. In the margins, around carefully lettered equations describing the steadily more-risky application of draconic energies, she’d been making observations of the nearby village at Dryground. The researcher had documented arrivals, departures, building growth, attacks by Risen, guard patrols, all the way down to making up pet names for the sylvari she was watching and a cheery notation about a new litter of fern hounds brought from the Pale Tree. The last hasty note scrawled into the rock with the magical stylus read “they’ll be safe.” 

Still stooped, the charr pulled the eyelid down over the remaining glassy eye with a delicacy incongruous to his paws. There was little to be done about the rest of the ruined visage, so he gently pushed it to the side so she faced the wall. The sound of jingling armor skittering on stone heralded Pleek’s slide back down from above.

“Careful, Balrit,” Pleek warned, tapping claws on her vambrace in mock-disapproval, “next you’ll be having sympathy for the gods.”

The charr barked an explosive laugh. “Who says I don’t already? Look at what all their big plans came to. And besides,” one corner of his muzzle skinned back in a sly half-grin, “they were stuck having to take care of the humans.”

Pleek brushed her breastplate once, but ignored the jibe and gestured to the last few platforms they had to jump to reach where the barriers had once been. “The way’s open now. Did you find anything here?”

Straightening his colorful mantle, Balrit stood. “Ashes and death, Pleek. Ashes and death.”

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in /gw2g/.
> 
> Events referenced here correspond to in-game events: the Hexfoundry Unhinged jumping puzzle.


End file.
